THE BIG LEBOWSKI. The latest comedy from the Coen brothers
never really comes together as a whole; but the texture of it,
as it spills across the screen, is funny, strange and wonderful.
Jeff Bridges plays a type-B personality called the Dude, a chronically
unemployed pot smoker dedicated to nothing except his bowling
buddies, and bowling itself. A case of mistaken identity leads
the Dude into some uncool, high-stress situations: kidnapping,
gunplay, robbery, and the like. All this seems like an excuse
to introduce a palette of oddball characters from the California
spectrum. The Coen brothers have a great time concocting visual
subplots and dream sequences that reference everything from Busby
Berkeley musicals to spaghetti westerns to detective films, but
they give their most loving attention to the bowling sequences.
Who knew bowling was such a photogenic sport? --Richter

THE BORROWERS. One thing The Borrowers don't need to "borrow"
is good old-fashioned fun! That's because in this movie, they
"borrow" their way right into your heart! In fact, The
Borrowers "borrowed" my attention for the full one-and-a-half
hours of their delightful film! No doubt they'll need to "borrow"
a cart to bring home their Oscar! Now I know what you're thinking:
neither a borrower nor a lender be. But forget about that, 'cause
here's one set of "borrowers" who promptly return what
they've borrowed -- in the form of entertainment! So beg, steal,
or "borrow" a ticket to The Borrowers as soon
as you can! You won't regret it! --Rex Siegel

DANGEROUS BEAUTY. This is why we love Hollywood! Dangerous
Beauty mixes the crass and melodramatic with the lofty and
noble, extruding trashy entertainment that's wildly enjoyable,
even if it does leave you feeling used and guilty. Catherine McCormack
plays Veronica Franco, a courtesan plying her wares in a strange
version of 16th century Venice where everybody speaks English
and appears in soft focus. Oh well, whatever--she's a plucky one,
and her plain speaking, bawdy intelligence eventually charms most
of the Venetian ruling class, including hunky Marco Venier (Rufus
Sewell), who risks it all to be her boyfriend. Dangerous Beauty
transplants progressive '90s sexual politics to the repressive
16th century, where uneducated wives were kept safely inside but
courtesans read whatever they liked and had the run of the place.
Veronica's pleas for independence, sexual equality, and erotic
freedom resonate across the centuries, making her far more spicy
than any 20th century spice girl. --Richter

HUSH.Jessica Lange does an over-the-top crazy lady in
the most predictable film since The Ten Commandments. In
what is one of the oddest decisions a director has ever made,
most of the action in this film occurred 20 years prior to its
start, and instead of showing it in flashbacks, it's all told
in dialogue. It's as close to radio as a movie can get. On top
of that, instead of following the normal thriller formula of tossing
in plot twists, maguffins and false scares, everything is precisely
what it seems to be and the story--what little there is of it--just
heads straight to its obvious conclusion. After what would normally
have been the scene right before the murdering mother goes psycho,
I turned to my movie companion and said, "Wouldn't it be
funny if it ended right here?" And then it did. It ended
right there. And nobody got hurt. --DiGiovanna

TWILIGHT. This film noir project seems to have been started
in 1955, when characters had names like Gloria Lamar and L.A.
was full of dangerous broads who would kill to keep their reputations
clean. Suddenly, the cast and crew fell asleep à la Rip
Van Winkle, and woke up 40 years later, skin sagging and hair
graying, but knowing that they must finish what they started.
The only modification made to the script in response to this time
warp is the scene where Paul Newman and James Garner discuss their
prostate glands. Reese Witherspoon, sporting newly enhanced breasts,
and Liev Schrieber, also with new breasts, are brought in as fresh
blood to nourish the aging cast and crew. Schrieber bleeds real
good, too. Real good. --DiGiovanna

U.S. MARSHALS. In Hollywood, if a sequel only brings back
half of the original's stars, it's called a "spin off."
If it brings back half the original's stars and none of its suspense,
it's called U.S. Marshals. Tommy Lee Jones stars as the
same squinty, no-bullshit character he played in The Fugitive.
But because Harrison Ford was busy working on a movie about a
president armed only with a bullwhip who commandeers a spacecraft
in order to save an Amish community from IRA assassins, now Wesley
Snipes is the dude on the run. After a big, noisy plane crash,
Snipes escapes and soon enters the Phonebooth of Expository Dialogue,
where we learn: (1) He's innocent; (2) he has top-secret info
and is wanted dead; and (3) he's not nearly as fun to root for
as Ford. Then Robert Downey, Jr. shows up as a federal agent with
no sense of humor, and you know what that means--he's the dreaded
two-armed man! As for poor Jones, he tries hard, but needs more
to work with than the jumble of suitcase trades, gun switches
and likable- good- guys- who- look- like- Judge- Reinhold- so- you- know- they're- dead- meat that the film supplies. As a result, U.S. Marshals maintains
the peculiar distinction of being impossible to follow yet completely
predictable. --Woodruff

Movie Guru
- A full-length review of "The Big Lebowski" from this week's Metro Pulse